Key questions to ask when designing for connected products/hardware-enabled services:

Is it a product, or a service?
How does your product work……and how can it fail?
Is your business model a good fit for user expectations?
How do we design not just for individual UIs but for distributed UX?
How often do devices connect? How responsive are they?
How do we give users transparency and control?

12.
12
Key questions to ask
1.Is it a product… …or a service?
2.How does your product work……and how can it fail?
3.Is your business model a good ﬁt for user expectations?
4.How do we design not just for individual UIs but for distributed UX?
5.How often do devices connect? How responsive are they?
6.How do we give users transparency and control?

20.
20
…but it also enables
new ways to fail
“The battery died. I need
to charge my wine bottle.”
The Verge review of kuvee.com
• Power
• Connectivity
• Interoperability
• Service provider goes out of business
• Failure to account for real world context

21.
21
smartbe.co
Some connected products have the potential to fail in
worse ways than the products they replace

22.
Ask: how do devices connect?
22
Apparently similar products can work in different ways

23.
Ask: which code
runs where?
23
When parts of the system lose
connectivity or power, what
stops working?

24.
24
Any product that users rely on should
maintain basic functions in the
temporary absence of connectivity.

33.
Consistency
33
What’s appropriate, given
different form factors and
conﬂicting conventions?

34.
Many, often conﬂicting,
forms of consistency
34
Consistency with cultural
expectations or industry standards
Consistency
within your own
service
Consistency with
device/hardware
expectations
Consistency
with
platform
conventions

41.
Connected device
interactions often break
guidance on response
times
41
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/powers-of-10-time-scales-in-
ux/
0.1 Second
• Decisions about visual appeal
• Direct manipulation
1 Second
• Users notice the short delay, they stay focused on their
current train of thought
10 Seconds
• Users get impatient and notice that they're waiting
• Breaks the ﬂow
1 Minute
• Users should be able to complete simple tasks in about 1
minute
10 Minutes
1 Hour
1 Day
…
We’re not used to latency and reliability
issues in the physical world

42.
At worst, latency/delays in
connecting can undermine
the value of a product
42
Users don’t know whether the device is
working or not… and may assume no
response is coming
Nicolas Calderone via macsources.com
[Ding Dong]
……………………….
………….
“Oh never mind”
……….……….

43.
Handling latency: the
impact on UX design
43
A conventional switch both conﬁrms the
user action and shows the state of the
lamp.
But in reality, latency and reliability issues
mean this can’t be guaranteed over a
network.
The user can’t tell whether their action
has been executed or whether it’s in
progress.

48.
The need to save battery
life means many devices
are oﬄine most of the time
48
The viability of a product can hinge on
the cost and practicality of putting in a
big enough battery to support useful
functioning

49.
Power sources shape the
nature of the interactions you
can oﬀer, and the data you
can extract
49
• A mains powered sensor can tell
you how much power you’re
using right now…
• A battery powered sensor can tell
you a general pattern of how
much energy you used
throughout the day
SSE app

50.
6
How do we give users
visibility and control of system
functions and privacy?
50

52.
52
If you’re going to infer the user’s needs you have
to get it right
For a… An AI model should be….
Curated experience
e.g. Netﬂix suggestions
70% conﬁdent it has the "right" answer
Corrective experience
e.g. turning off the lights when motion
is not detected
85% conﬁdent it has the "right" answer
Predictive experience
e.g. Google Assistant uses data from your home
to predict that you are leaving for the airport and
calls a taxi
99.999% conﬁdent it has the "right" answer
>
>
>
Via Mark Spates (markspates.com)

58.
58
GDPR is a chance to
improve things
• Companies need a valid reason to
collect a piece of data, and must be
clear about what can be done with
it.
• Users have the right to ask what the
company knows about them, and to
force the company to correct wrong
information or delete their data.
• Companies are also prohibited from
proﬁling users on the basis of data.
image

59.
59
Visibility of
what is shared
and collected
“On the Internet Everybody Knows You’re a Whatchamacallit” by Joseph Lindley, http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/
84761/4/Polly_Design_Fiction_Booklet.pdf

60.
60
Redesigning informed
consent
“GDPR says you can’t just have a huge
swathe of terms and conditions and get
somebody to tick the box because that’s
not meaningful consent. You have to
demonstrate that they understand and the
only way you’re going to do that is actually
to rethink what terms and conditions look
like, how they’re presented, whether they
come through as part of the service, how
they evolve, how you can change them… “
Professor Paul Coulton, Chair of Speculative and Game
Design, Lancaster University
See “The Little Book of Design Fiction for the Internet of
Things”.

61.
61
It takes a team to make an IoT product
1.It takes a diverse team to make an IoT product or service… more diverse
than for pure software
2.No-one fully understands everyone else’s jobs, but try to understand their
biggest concerns (e.g. saving power, trying to ensure the hardware can
support future features that might not be deﬁned yet)
3.Foster communication: everyone shares what they are working on and
their issues
4.What looks like a design decision could impact API design, or even
ﬁrmware

62.
62
Recap: ask these questions!
1.Is it a product… …or a service?
2.How does your product work……and how can it fail?
3.Is your business model a good ﬁt for user expectations?
4.How do we design not just for individual UIs but for distributed UX?
5.How often do devices connect? How responsive are they?
6.How do we give users transparency and control?